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It has come to my attention that there are a few issues that may need to be looked at and ironed out with the forum. I am basing this statement on my experience from PMs from forum members concerned with their rep and your experiences that I read about here on the forum itself.

So let's talk:

What would you like to see in the GOG forum?

What would you change, what would you keep the same?

In short, feel free to express your opinion on your experience with the forum in general and what you think can be done to improve or enhance the experience :)

doccarnby: I would also be down for a good search system and the ability to look at my previous posts.

Edit: Merge the Alone in the Dark forum with the Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare forum.

While I could merge both forums right now, it would mean that you would no longer be able to access the posts made in the standalone AITD4 forum, if I did it my way. That's a delicate task that require a manual merging of some kind in order to prevent posts being removed and whatnot.

Wishbone: I see two possible ways to keep the rep system while improving it.

1. Remove downrep, keep uprep. Pros: Constructive members of the community will still be "rewarded" for their efforts, and there will be no downrep system for people to abuse. Cons: There will be no way to downrep those who truly do deserve it.

2. Keep both, but make all upreps and downreps public. Pros: Letting everyone see who downrepped a post means no more anonymous downrepping. When people can't hide behind the anonymity of the downrep button, the number of downreps should drop dramatically. Cons: Letting people see exactly who has downrepped what could spark off new conflicts and rep wars.

Also, as DarkoD13 says, post history would be an excellent addition. Every other forum has it already. So would yours, if you didn't insist on coding everything yourselves ;-)

HypersomniacLive: I seriously doubt that scrapping anonymity would have that effect. If anonymity is no longer possible, they'd just set up a bunch of accounts to use for this purpose alone which would reveal nth about the actual user, plus cause more discussions and PMs to Judas. Even with the current system, it's quite likely that they're not using their regular account.

Just for the record, I don't mind PMs, I just rather not have people getting hurt or feeling harassed while not knowing why and for what. The whole rep thing and the resultant PMs I've gotten about it is one of the things that spurred me on to create this topic.

So for the record, PMing me is perfectly fine :) Just laying out this disclaimer so people don't think I don't want to talk to them or something :)

stg83: Lets make something clear first, many people say they don't care about rep including myself but for me this implies that I don't judge people based on their extremely high or low arbitrary serial number. I haven't been here long but I have interacted with quite a few folks here to be able to base my opinion on their demeanor and general conduct in the forum. That being said the rep system is now being abused in a manner as to express disapproval of certain individuals regardless of their actions. Some people have found a way to dictate how they think others should behave and represent themselves in the forum regardless of what thread they are on. So instead of presenting sound reasoning as in most cases it is entirely ridiculous, they can just hide behind the - button.

The way I see it either you should get rid of the system entirely or you can just remove the effect of the - button while still keeping the main purpose of it i.e. just turn it into a report button. Most people seem to agree that there should be a way to express appreciation of the many nice and helpful people so the +rep button should stay as it is. In conclusion the way the system currently works though most definitely has to be changed, that we all should agree on.

EDIT: Also thank you very much Judas for creating this thread, I feel it was very much need to highlight our issues. Good hands-on work as the moderator. ;)

You're welcome :) But the thanks go to everyone who is participating. Gotta say I am seeing some interesting ideas here :)

OldFatGuy: Being heard and being listened to are entirely different things. :P

I understand what you mean and I created this topic for being both heard and listened to :) I am not sure when the forums might get improved but I am hoping to get some input from the community so that when the time comes we have a single thread with all of the issues in one place instead of a whole bunch of issues, concerns etc. spread out all over the forum :)

JudasIscariot: I understand what you mean and I created this topic for being both heard and listened to :) I am not sure when the forums might get improved but I am hoping to get some input from the community so that when the time comes we have a single thread with all of the issues in one place instead of a whole bunch of issues, concerns etc. spread out all over the forum :)

SpellSword: All joking aside: I believe there are dangers associated with displaying the IP, I'd rather it not become a feature. (Or give users the ability to turn the display off as an option... however I think that would remove its intended use.)

I, for one, am very much against displaying the IP address of a poster. That just sounds like a major privacy violation. Yes, I know grimwerk is being facetious with his post :)

cmdr_flashheart: Some requests, while you're doing your site overhaul, please don't make this place childish- no forum achievements, no user profiles, no banners or signatures allowance, no visible remarks of "thanking" (if you want to make +/- non-anon, make it so people reading the forum don't have to look at that shit). Keep this place clean and minimalistic, if possible. Thanks for reading!

What is your opinion on having those features BUT only if they are opt-in, that is, if you don't actively turn any of them on, things stay the same for you as before? Just asking in general, not promising anything here :)

cmdr_flashheart: Some requests, while you're doing your site overhaul, please don't make this place childish- no forum achievements, no user profiles, no banners or signatures allowance, no visible remarks of "thanking" (if you want to make +/- non-anon, make it so people reading the forum don't have to look at that shit). Keep this place clean and minimalistic, if possible. Thanks for reading!

OldFatGuy: Are they doing a site overhaul here? I made comment yesterday about it, but then was questioned about it, so thought my memory was playing tricks on me again.

So they ARE doing an overhaul here at gog?

There is going to be one, yes, but I can't say when exactly it will happen and what will get overhauled/improved as the technical website stuff is way out of my league :)

JudasIscariot: Just for the record, I don't mind PMs, I just rather not have people getting hurt or feeling harassed while not knowing why and for what. The whole rep thing and the resultant PMs I've gotten about it is one of the things that spurred me on to create this topic.

So for the record, PMing me is perfectly fine :) Just laying out this disclaimer so people don't think I don't want to talk to them or something :)

HypersomniacLive: I know that you don't mind PMs, I only mentioned it as part of the chain.

I also asked you a question here and I'd appreciate a reply - pretty please ;-)

K_1269: snip

3. Ability for the OP to close/delete a thread s/he has created

HypersomniacLive: I don't agree with the delete option - one should think before starting a thread or even making a post.

Regarding the rep system and talking about changing it, a compromise could be:

# Retain the +1 rep for the first post of the day instead of post count - it'd shield from the post count being abused, not to mention that high activity (i.e. high post count) doesn't necessarily mean actual contribution, and that goes for new and existing members alike. # Rating posts either way could stay, anonymous or not, but without impact on user rep, just the specific post being highlighted/ buried. # Answering Question threads could maybe contribute to user rep, but only that if at all.

If it's this one

"What's the current system of preventing spam report abuse?"

Then my reply is: You can only downrep someone once and the same goes for the spam report function AFAIK :)

Then my reply is: You can only downrep someone once and the same goes for the spam report function AFAIK :)

HypersomniacLive: OK, I'm confused now. My question was the result of your exchange with Coelocanth regarding the ability to still report spam. You brought up the issue of possible abuse and measures to prevent it. If the report spam function remains as it is now, why would you be worried about potential abuse?

I don't know what the spam report function will be like once the site overhaul is done :) That and it's kinda late and I am trying to process all the info I got here so I can respond to posts so it's not a completely one-sided discussion :)